Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
—Whitehead
The distinguished Soviet geneticist Vavilov was unpersoned for refusing to reject heredity in favor of the neo-Lamarckism championed by Lysenko and Stalin, and I feel fortunate to live in a country where nothing like that could ever happen.
We need not search for facts that confirm our opinions: all facts confirm our opinions.
Most of the things we want to talk about are continuous, and most of the ways we have to talk about them are discrete.
Markets tend naturally toward monopoly in certain commodities, like diamonds, or ideas.
Overrated: thinking before you speak
Underrated: thinking after you speak
Correlation does not imply causation, and the reverse is also true.
A man at philosophy is like a cat up a tree: he can think his way into a lot more trouble than he can think his way out of.
There are people who understand the power of speech, and people who oppose restrictions on speech, but rarely the same people.
Sanity is less a particular outlook than a practiced aversion to the multifarious forms of crazy.
Thought-criminals, like regular ones, would escape punishment more often if they could manage not to boast of their exploits.